Woman who says she rescued alligator about to be flushed in toilet is charged in airport abandonment

A woman who told police that she and her then-boyfriend rescued a 2-foot alligator that a friend was going to flush down a toilet has been charged with abandoning the animal in a Chicago airport.

Alexis T. Prokopchuk, 29, who lives in the city’s suburbs, was arrested Tuesday and faces misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty and reckless conduct in the Nov. 1 incident, the Chicago Tribune reports. Prokopchuk appeared in court Wednesday and was ordered held in lieu of $5,000 bail.

Prokopchuk was identified through social media information and surveillance footage that showed her with an alligator on a commuter train to O’Hare International Airport.

The alligator, estimated to be about 3 years old and reportedly showing adverse physical effects from a poor diet, was captured by a custodian at the airport after someone spotted the animal in the lower level of Terminal 3. At last report, the gator had been turned over to the Chicago Herpetological Society.

The article doesn’t include any comment about the charges from Prokopchuk or her lawyer, if she has one.